Games review: Madden NFL 11 plays a mean handegg

America’s favourite game gets its latest yearly update, but is Madden NFL 11 sufficiently improved to justify this latest version?

Madden NFL 11 (PS3) – just don’t call it football

The success of Madden in the UK doesn’t have anything to do with the quality of the game, but whether the sport itself happens to be enjoying a peak of popularity or not. Sometimes it make it into the top 10, sometimes it barely scrapes into the top 30. This year it made to number 15 in the individual format charts, which suggests a good but unremarkable effort. Which by contrived intro coincidence is exactly how you’d describe the game itself.The Madden series as a whole has ploughed a similarly slow but steady course all generation, neither suffering the complete meltdown of Pro Evolution Soccer or enjoying the coming of age excellence of FIFA. To be fair there wasn’t an awful lot wrong with the last game beyond some weak artificial intelligence and a curiously high number of minor bugs – and this does address both issues. It doesn’t however do very much beyond that.Whatever EA sports title you’re talking about there’s always a big gimmick for each new iteration and this year Madden’s is ‘GameFlow’. This proves very useful because it allows you to call offensive and defensive plays with a single button press. The game picks the most logical for any given moment and you can still do it the long winded way if you prefer manual control.As unexciting as an apparently simple interface change like this may sound it does considerably quicken the pace of the game, even as it opens it up to accusations of dumbing down. There’s no arguing it’s a less tactical way to play, but it’s a lot more accessible – especially for someone not entirely confident with all the nuances of the game.After GameFlow the list of new features quickly tends towards the trivial. Turning off the sprint button by default does actually make quite a difference to the sense of realism and how the game plays – but is it really worth paying another £40 for?In terms of other new feature you’ve got the Ultimate Team mode, which was downloadable content last year, but here is a standard feature. The idea is you get given a collection of players like old Panini soccer stickers and then try to turn them into an effective team to earn money to buy more. The same basic idea first emerged in FIFA 09 but to be honest it sounds a lot more interesting on paper than it proves in practise.The other new mode is called Madden Moments and has you replaying specific incidents from the last NFL season. Again it’s an older soccer sim trick, and obviously is only going to mean something to those who actually watched the original incidents. In principle it’s a good idea though, even though weirdly the rosters seem to be from this season rather than last.The graphics and presentation are okay, but with a curious lack of attention to detail for such a big name title. Obviously it doesn’t affect the gameplay that no one gets mud on themselves when it’s raining, but it still seems a lazy oversight.Also, although the physics between players has been improved, that of the ball is often highly unconvincing. And although the artificial intelligence and bug problems have been greatly reduced from last year they’re still present and that really is unacceptable for a game that has changed this little in a year.As EA well know though, thanks to their monopoly of the NFL license, this is still the only game in town for American football fans. It doesn’t abuse that position, but it also does little to earn it.In Short:This does fix many of the flaws of the last game, but there are so few real advances that this is one yearly update you’ll find easy to skip.Pros:GameFlow works well and the artificial intelligence, despite continued inconsistencies, is greatly improved. Online play is still great fun.Cons:None of the new features come anywhere close to being essential. The mediocre presentation and high number of bugs is still shameful for such a big title.Score:7/10PlayStation 3, £49.99 (cert 3, also on Xbox 360)Publisher: Electronic ArtsDeveloper: EA TiburonRelease Date: 13th August 2010